Thursday, June 26, 2008

You can't make this stuff up. Check out Verdon Brown's response to this post about the proposed handgun ban in Canada. The Cliff Notes version is he explained what he thinks handguns are for & that he thinks handgun owners should "find a new hobby" - he proposes stamp collecting. He says he is not anti gun because he likes rifles & shotguns. He thinks Canada is better than all the other Countries that have tried & failed miserably to curb violent crime by making it illegal to own handguns, because Canada can "learn from mistakes" to make their proposed handgun ban work when all of the other Countries that have tried it so far have failed.

Mr Brown, I have just a few questions. Please tell me which mistakes Canada will learn from, other than the fact that gun bans always backfire. I'm sure Washington DC, the UK, & Australia, among other cities & countries would love to hear your ideas. Additionally, please explain to me how making it even more illegal for criminals to use guns they are already not allowed to own, while performing illegal violent acts they are already not allowed to perform, will somehow make the now disarmed victims more safe from the now emboldened (and armed) criminals than they were before they were disarmed by their very own government?

Even if a criminal happens to use a knife or a baseball bat instead of a handgun, how exactly would that help his or her disarmed victim? Does it hurt less to be killed by a baseball bat clubbing or a knife stabbing than a gunshot wound? I can't really say, but I do know that either way I'd prefer to have my handgun with me to give me my best chance while I fight for the lives of my family & myself.

Just to save us all some time, don't bother to tell me that we don't need handguns because we have rifles & shotguns. How many Police officers have given up their handguns so they can carry their rifles instead? I don't know about you, but I prefer to carry my handgun everywhere I go, if nothing else, just to have a portable firearm that I could use to fight my way to my rifle that probably would not be with me in a sudden emergency situation.

Why? Because a rifle won't fit in my waistband holster, and even if it could, a rifle would get very heavy lugging it everywhere I go. Handguns, Rifles, & Shotguns all have their independent advantages & proper purposes, otherwise we wouldn't have so many of all the various types. If handguns are so useless, why do the Police like them so much? Even in your very own petition you mention an exception that Police would still be "allowed" to have handguns.

That said, and I know this is a horrible argument to bring to bear against everyone, but if he is the best gun-grabbing face in Canada, he surely is presenting his case poorly, what with the comment being rife with grammatical inconsistencies and blatant misspellings.

As for the message itself, just the standard claptrap of the guns being at fault for the crime in an area, rather than blaming the individual criminals, the society that allows the criminals to exist (and possibly fosters their development), and the judicial system for not adequately enforcing what laws are already on the books.

This is Verdon Brown's Nephew writing from St. John's, NL. The difference between a handgun and a baseball bat is that the bat doesn't miss it's target and kill someone on the other side of the street. Many of the killings associated with guns are gang related. Bats have less innocent bystanders. As for the laws working or not working in other countries, the statistics you are throwing out are stated in a very black and white fashion. If violence was to increase because of the ban on handguns (which I doubt) the type of crime would likely still be less severe and deadly. Even with that said we have to try to fight the source instead of having a "we can't do anything about it anyway" attitude. Western society has been fighting drugs for years and yet people can still buy them as easily as alcohol, but we still fight it the best we can.

Grant: Actually a baseball bat is much more deadly & lethal than a handgun. A single high velocity blow with a baseball bat to ANYPLACE in the head will either turn the recipient into a vegetable or kill him or her instantly. A handgun on the other hand will only kill instantly if the bullet penetrates the correct location of the head, doesn't ricochet off the skull, & manages to penetrate into the brain. The velocity itself does not have enough energy to kill simply by hitting any location in the head. In fact, over 80% of gunshot wounds do NOT lead to death.

Your stray bullet argument also misses the target. You see, the number of people killed every year with stray bullets in the US is VERY low. We're talking less than 100. More people drown in bathtubs, 5 gallon buckets, & toilets than people killed by stray bullets. However, I don't hear anyone clambering to ban bathtubs, buckets, or toilets.

About Me

I've always enjoyed gun sports but for many years did not fully realize the grave danger our 2nd Amendment rights are in from opponents who want to take our guns away by using lies & propaganda. As a result I've created this blog to assist in the effort to get the truth out.
My e-mail address is dustinsgunblog_at_gmail.com (replace _at_ with @ - this foils spam list web crawlers)